Kiss and Cry
by Sporadic-Tiger
Summary: Anna sees Elsa figure skating, and is awestruck.


Anna wanders through the castle, looking up at the walls, adorned with the paintings she became all too familiar with as a younger girl. She had been trying to find her older sister for hours.  
"I wonder where she got to." Anna says aloud as she steps outside. She looks over and sees Olaf pushing at his flurry, and leaning in the opposite direction as if reaching for something. The redhead's brow comes together as she walks in his direction. "Olaf," she addresses him as she approaches, "What are you doing?"  
"Oh!" Olaf shouts, whipping his head to face her, his tone pleasantly surprised, "Hi, Anna! See, I was walking around out here, and I saw this flower, and it looks like it might be really thirsty, so I figured, you know, I'm MADE of solid water, so..."  
"Oh, Olaf..." Anna smiles a little. It warms her heart when he does things like this, "Do you even know how much water that flower really needs?" His entire brain devotes itself to the task of trying to find the information for a few seconds, leaving his expression blank. "Nope." He looks up to Anna, stating the results, "But I figure I'll see it get better, right?"  
"That's not quite how it works." Anna says, bending her knees to bring herself to almost a sitting position at the snowman's height, and gently lowers his arm so his flurry could rush to it's place over the center of his head. He looks up at her in confusion, silently asking her to tell him how it does work.  
She would never tell Elsa, but Anna sometimes considers Olaf to be their child, in a weird, magicy way. So when Olaf gives her that face, all she can think of is him saying _Why, Mommy? How __**does **__it work?_ She smiles warmly at the thought.  
"It's great that you have good intentions, Olaf. I'm sure that flower is very grateful of the gift you gave it. But sometimes, you can't tell until later. Be careful not to give too much of yourself away, sometimes people just need some time to let your kindness sink in."  
"... I thought we were talking about flowers." Olaf says, staring at her. Anna's gaze seems a little distant, but snaps back in an instant.  
"We are." She replies.  
"You said people." He points out.  
"I..." she stops and laughs a little, "I did, didn't I."  
"It works with people like that too?" Olaf asks.  
"Yes," Anna answers, "Sometimes it does."  
"Elsa's like that, isn't she?" Olaf observes. Anna is almost taken aback by his insight.  
"Yes," she answers slowly, "She is. But that's because she... hasn't seen kindness in a long time."  
"She's not comfortable around a lot of people like you are." Olaf prods, "Why is that?" Anna sighs a bit pensively.  
"I think she gets scared." Anna offers.  
"Scared?" Olaf continues, "Why?"  
"Because she spent most of her life without them. When you go without something for a long time, it takes a while to get used to having it. She's still working out being around so many people at once, she doesn't know how to really handle it yet." Anna pauses thoughtfully, "I suppose you could say, having spending most of her life in her room, having a lot of people in one space is hard to adjust to."  
"Ohhh... So that's why she wanted me to keep her skating rink a secret..." Olaf mutters.  
"What? Is that where she is now?" Anna asks.  
"Oh, no! No you don't, that's a secret!" Olaf says sternly turning his head, then adding, "She is an amazing skater though."  
"Oh yeah?" Anna asks, standing up, looking to the sky and shuffling her feet a little, "I wish I could see..."  
"You do?" Olaf asks excitedly, "She's probably skating right now! Come on, this way!" he reaches up and grabs her finger, pulling her along as he runs out the gates and into the surrounding woods. He finally slows his pace as Anna sees a glint of light shimmer and dance in the distance though the trees.  
"Over there, but be quiet okay?" Olaf says, pointing to the light, "Elsa might get mad if she knows we're here." Anna nods and moves silently through the trees, stopping a little farther away than she would have liked, but she doesn't want to alarm the queen. She peeks around a tree as she watches Elsa glide across the frozen pond (which should not be frozen this time of year,) with a grace that was almost beyond Anna's comprehension. She could have been watching for minutes, or hours, or even years, as the considerable shorter but no less flattering ice garment her sister was wearing shimmered as she moved across the ice like a snow fairy, light and fluid in every motion. A voice begins wafting into her ear as her other senses begin to come back.  
"Counter turn," it says from her feet as Elsa skates, "Ina Bauer, I spin position..." Anna looks down and sees that Olaf is the one speaking, "Ooo~ Nice toe step, I love toe steps... Abaresque, camel spin... not bad... Pretty standard stuff today..."  
"This..." Anna's words slip from her mouth in awe, "this is standard?"  
"Oh yeah! You should see when she gets serious! It's amazing!" Olaf shouts, then covers his mouth.  
"This already is amazing..." Anna comments, her eyes on the ice queen once more. Olaf goes back to naming the moves he can recognize.  
"Cute little three turn... double axel, not bad... she's going really fast..." After he said double axel, Anna gathered that one was a spin jump of so many rotations and one half, because Elsa had started front and landed going backwards.  
"I'm surprised at how much of this is backwards..." Anna says, just as her sister leaps into the air, spinning really really fast and landing backwards again, and immediately after jumping and spinning again, but a little slower.  
"Anna... do you know what we just witnessed?" Anna looks down to see him staring at Elsa in absolute awe, "That was the legendary quad spin jump, followed by a triple toe! That was seven rotations!"  
They both turned back to the ice, and Elsa had built up speed. She is still backwards, and leaps high, performing a midair backwards somersault, and landing perfectly.  
"A backflip! Right after a quad? AMAZING!" Olaf shouts, running out to the ice as Elsa slows and bring herself to the middle of the rink. "That was so good, Elsa! I wish I could skate like that!" She looks out to him, and Anna quickly ducks behind the tree.  
"Olaf! I haven't seen you all day!" Elsa calls to him. "Having a good one though, I hope?"  
"Of course! Anna taught me about flower people today!" he says, stopping at her feet, grinning ear to ear.  
"Flower... people?" Elsa asks, slightly entertained.  
"Yeah! She said you're one Mo-" he stops himself. Anna blinks, still hiding behind the tree.  
"Did he really almost call her...?" Anna whispers to herself._  
_"What's wrong? You know it's okay when we're alone." Elsa inquires. Anna blushes.  
"This is so cute it feels like an invasion of privacy."Anna whispers aloud again.  
"Yeah... well... about that..." Olaf sounds like he's looking around and holding his hands in front of him, "We're... not really alone right now."  
"What?" Elsa blurts, "Who else is here then?"

"...Me." Anna calls out, stepping out from behind the tree, "Please don't get mad, I promise I'll never come here again, but... I tricked Olaf into showing me, and I saw you skating and it was amazing, Elsa!"

"...Really?" Elsa blushes lightly at seeing her sister gushing. Elsa and Anna meet at the edge of the pond.  
"YES!" Anna answers, "Elsa, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"  
Elsa isn't sure what to say, or how to react, so she just stands there, staring at Anna, her face growing redder by the second.  
"And this is where we wait for it to sink in, right?" Olaf asks Anna, looking up at her cutely.  
"Yes. That's exactly right." Anna says, smiling at Elsa.  
"Oh! I get it now!" Olaf exclaims, flailing excitedly.  
"Is this about you telling him that I'm a..." Elsa squints and smirks a little, "flower person?"  
"Well, that wasn't what I said, _exactly..._" Anna replies, "But more or less... yeah. That's exactly what this is."  
"Oh really?" Elsa questions Anna, "Then what DID you say to him?"  
"I told him that flowers are like people, in that sometimes when you do something for them, you have to wait to see the results." Anna says, gently, her eyes locked on her sister's. Elsa's heart races in her chest, as a warmth begins to grow. The older girl smiles a little.  
"How long are you willing to wait?" Elsa asks, not totally sure why she needed to know.  
"Forever, if I have to," Anna answers without hesitation, taking Elsa's hands in her own without breaking the gaze, "I love you."  
Elsa's heart skips a beat on top of it's already fast rate, and she wonders if she might be about to swoon. She doesn't, which is good. For Elsa, mostly. A lump is caught in her throat as she smiles lovingly, trying to think of anything she could say. When she fails to, she simply throws her arms around the redhead, squeezing her as tightly as possible.  
_Maybe one day, she'll realize..._ Anna thinks to herself. The thought is accompanied by a small pang of guilt, of shame, which she brushes to the side.  
For now, she lets Elsa crush her spine, grinning widely.  
_This is okay too. _  
"In the kiss and cry, waiting for the score..." Olaf mutters to himself from a small distance away, smiling knowingly at the two of them. He turns and begins to walk in the other direction, when he stops and looks back for a moment, and then turns again and continues on his way, chuckling to himself. "My mommies are so cute~" 


End file.
